EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED ALDINE EDITION OF SPENSER'S POEMS, EXQUISITELY BOUND

SPENSER, Edmund. The Poetical Works. New York and London: (Chiswick Press), circa 1891. Five volumes. 12mo, contemporary full crimson morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spines and covers with floral designs incorporating blue, green and white morocco inlays, green morocco-gilt doublures with red morocco inlays in a floral design, raised bands, watered silk endpapers, all edges gilt. $4800.

Later Aldine edition of the poems of Spenser, including The Faerie Queene, with portrait of the poet and extra-illustrated with 25 window-mounted engravings, ten hand-colored, splendidly bound in full morocco-gilt with multi-colored morocco inlays in floral designs.

"Spenser's influence on English poetic literature cannot be readily over-estimated… 'No other of our poets,' wrote James Russell Lowell, 'has given an impulse, and in the right direction also, to so many and so diverse minds.' Charles Lamb bestowed on Spenser his just title when he described him as 'the poet's poet'" (DNB). Includes a Life of Spenser. The "Aldine" edition of British poets, first brought out by the publisher William Pickering beginning in 1830, aimed to introduce scholarly editions of the classics in a smaller, more affordable format.

A splendidly bound, extra-illustrated set in fine condition.